A diplomatic cable from last February released by WikiLeaks
provides a detailed account of how Russian specialists on the
Iranian ballistic missile program refuted the U.S.
suggestion that Iran has missiles that could target European
capitals or intends to develop such a capability.

In fact, the Russians challenged the very existence of the
mystery missile the U.S. claims Iran acquired from North
Korea.

But readers of the two leading U.S. newspapers never learned
those key facts about the document.

The New York Times and Washington Post reported only that
the United States believed Iran had acquired such missiles –
supposedly called the BM-25 – from North Korea. Neither
newspaper reported the detailed Russian refutation of the
U.S. view on the issue or the lack of hard evidence for the
BM-25 from the U.S. side.

The Times, which had obtained the diplomatic cables not from
WikiLeaks but from the Guardian, according to a Washington
Post story Monday, did not publish the text of the cable.

The Times story said the newspaper had made the decision not
to publish “at the request of the Obama administration.”
That meant that its readers could not compare the highly distorted account of the document in the Times story against
the original document without searching the WikiLeaks Web site.

As a result, a key WikiLeaks document which should have
resulted in stories calling into question the thrust of the
Obama administration’s ballistic missile defense policy in
Europe based on an alleged Iranian missile threat has
produced a spate of stories supporting the existing Iranian
threat narrative.

The full text of the U.S. State Department report on the
meeting of the Joint Threat Assessment in Washington Dec.
22, 2009, which is available on the WikiLeaks Web site, shows
that there was a dramatic confrontation over the issue of
the mysterious BM-25 missile.

The BM-25 has been described as a surface-to-surface missile
based on a now-obsolete Soviet submarine-launched ballistic
missile, the R-27 or SS-N-6. The purported missile is said
to be capable of reaching ranges of 1,500 to 2,500 miles –
putting much of Europe within its range.

The head of the U.S. delegation to the meeting, Vann H. Van
Diepen, acting assistant secretary for international
security and nonproliferation, said the United States
“believes” Iran had acquired 19 of those missiles from North
Korea, according to the leaked document.

But an official of the Russian Defense Ministry dismissed
published reports of such a missile, which he said were
“without reference to any reliable sources.”

He observed that there had never been a test of such a
missile in either North Korea or Iran, and that the Russian
government was “unaware that the missile had ever been
seen.” The Russians asked the U.S. side for any evidence of
the existence of such a missile.

U.S. officials did not claim to have photographic or other
hard evidence of the missile but said the North Koreans had
paraded the missile through the streets of Pyongyang. The
Russians responded that they had reviewed a video of that
parade and had found that it was an entirely different
missile.

The Russian official said there was no evidence for claims
that 19 of these missiles had been shipped to Iran in 2005,
and that it would have been impossible to conceal such a
transfer. The Russians also said it was difficult to believe
Iran would have purchased a missile system that had never
even been tested.

U.S. delegation chief Van Diepen cited one piece of
circumstantial evidence that Iran had done work on the
“steering (vernier) engines” of the BM-25. Internet photos
of the weld lines and tank volumes on the second stage of
Iran’s space launch vehicle, the Safir, he said, show that
the ratio of oxidizer to propellant is not consistent with
the propellants used in the past by the Shahab-3.

That suggests that the Safir was using the same system that
had been used in the R-27, according to Van Diepen.

The Russians asserted, however, that the propellant used in
the Safir was not the one used in the R-27.

Even more important evidence from the Safir launch that Iran
does not have any BM-25 missiles was noted in an
authoritative study of the Iranian missile program
published by the London-based International Institute for
Strategic Studies (IISS) last May.

The study found that Iran had not used the main engine
associated with the purported BM-25 to help boost its Safir
space-launch vehicle.

If Iran had indeed possessed the more powerful engine
associated with the original Russian R-27, the study
observes, the Safir would have been able to launch a much
larger satellite into orbit. But in fact the Safir was
“clearly underpowered” and barely able to put its 27 kg
satellite into low earth orbit, according to the IISS study.

The same study also points out that the original R-27 was
designed to operate in a submarine launch tube, and a road-mobile variant would require major structural modifications.
Yet another reason for doubt reported by IISS is that the
propellant combination in the R-27 would not work in a land-mobile missile, because “the oxidizer must be maintained
within a narrow temperature range.”

Van Diepen suggested two other Iranian options: use of the
Shahab-3 technology with “clustered or stacked engines” or
the development of a solid-propellant MRBM with a more
powerful engine.

The Russians expressed strong doubts about both options,
however, saying they were skeptical of Iranian claims to
have a missile with a 1,200-mile range. They pointed out that
the longest range on a missile tested thus far is 1,000 miles,
and that it was achieved only by significantly reducing
throw weight.

Van Diepen cited “modeling” studies that showed Iran could
achieve a greater range, and that adding an additional 200 miles “is not a great technological stretch.” But the Russian
delegation insisted that the additional length of the flight
could cause various parts of the missile to burn through and
the missile could fall apart.

The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Nazarov, deputy
secretary of the Russian Security Council, said Russia
believes any assessment of the Iranian missile program
must be based not only on modeling but on “consideration of
the real technical barriers faced by Iran.”

One of several such barriers cited by the Russians was the
lack of the “structural materials” needed for longer-range
missiles that could threaten the United States or Russia,
such as “high quality aluminum.”

The Russians maintained that even assuming favorable
conditions, Iran would be able to begin a program to
develop ballistic missiles that could reach Central Europe
or Moscow only after 2015 at the earliest.

The Russians denied, however, that Iran has such an
intention, arguing that its ballistic missile program
continues to be directed toward “regional concerns” –
meaning deterring an attack on Iran by Israel.

The U.S. delegation never addressed the issue of Iranian
intentions – a position consistent with the dominant role of
weapons specialists in the U.S. intelligence community’s
assessments of Iran and their overwhelming focus on
capabilities and disinterest in intentions.

Michael Elleman, the senior author of the IISS study of the
Iranian missile program, told IPS the report of the U.S.-Russian exchange highlights the differences in the two
countries’ approaches to the subject. “The Russians talked
about the most likely set of outcomes,” said Elleman,
“whereas the U.S. side focused on what might happen.”

20120331772 Responseshttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2Fporter%2F2010%2F11%2F30%2Frussians-refuted-us-claim%2FRussians+Refuted+US+Claim+of+Iranian+Missile+Threat+to+Europe2010-12-01+06%3A00%3A30Gareth+Porterhttp%3A%2F%2Foriginal.antiwar.com%2F%3Fp%3D2012033177 to “Russians Refuted US Claim of Iranian Missile Threat to Europe”

[…] to our national security." Some of the more interesting stories contained in the cables get scrupulously ignored by the media as in the case of the New York Times (the paper of record) and the Washington […]